Tag Archives: Louis XV

La Défense

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La Défense is Europe’s largest purpose-built business district with 560ha (1,400acres). It is located outside the Paris city limits in the département Hauts-de-Seine. and divided between four municipalities: Puteaux, Courbevoie, Nanterre and La Garenne-Colombes.

The name stems from a monument called La Défense de Paris honoring the soldiers defending the city of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. It was inaugurated in 1883 and has since been moved several times to accommodate the changing business district that now bears its name.

180,000 people work here, while only about 25,000 people live in the apartments that can be found in between the office towers. La Défense can be reached on public transport with the métro 1 which has two stations, one at each extremity: Esplanade de La Défense and La Défense (Grande Arche), as well as with the RER A at the La Défense station.

The axis in its extension from the Champs-Élysées was drawn under Louis XV, but it was only in the 1960s that the business district began to grow. It went through several stages until it became the collection of skyscrapers that it is today. Currently its highest tower is the Tour First at 231m, which is also France’s highest skyscraper.

Visitors to La Défense will notice the long esplanade stretching along the center of the district and culminating in the Parvis square between the CNIT, the Quatre Temps Shopping Center and the Grande Arche.

The Parvis with the CNIT on the left and the Quatre Temps shopping mall to the right – in the distance, the Arc de Triomphe

The CNIT is the oldest building of La Défense and the largest unsupported concrete span enclosed space in the world. Entry is free, you just need to look up to see the impressive roof structure.

inside the CNIT

The Quatre Temps Shopping mall was the most visited shopping mall in France in 2019.

Below the esplanade hides a network of streets, the métro, the RER train, delivery docks, service and  emergency access roads, and parking garages.

La Défense métro station below the Esplanade
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The Luxor Obelisk

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Following an equestrian statue of Louis XV, a statue of liberty and a statue of Louis XVI, the Luxor obelisk has stood at the center of the Place de la Concorde since the 1830s.

Actually, there were two obelisks given to France by Egypt. Jean-François Champollion, the French scholar who deciphered the hieroglyphs, chose which would be transported to France first.

A ship had to be built specifically for its transport as it had to be able to navigate the Nile, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Channel and the Seine, all with the 23m-long 230 ton obelisk aboard. The journey ended up taking almost two years.

Details of the complex machinery needed to transport and erect it were added to the pedestal in 1839.

Today’s gold-leaf pyramid cap was added in 1998.

In 1981, President François Mitterrand officially renounced possession of the second obelisk, restoring it to Egypt, where it can still be seen at the Luxor Temple.

I said Obelisk, not Obelix!
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Place de la Concorde

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The Place de la Concorde is the biggest public square in Paris and one of the five places royales.

It was created in 1763 and has changed names several times, reflecting political regimes and historic events. Its first name was place Louis XV, until 1792 when it became Place de la Révolution. During the Directory, the Consulate and the First Empire (of Napoléon Ier), it was called Place de la Concorde. It became place Louis XV again, then place Louis XVI during the Restauration (when the monarchy was restored after Napoléon and his empire fell), place de la Charte in 1830 and finally Place de la Concorde under the July Monarchy.

During the Revolution, the guillotine was placed here several times. King Louis XVI was among those decapitated there.

Since the 1830s, the Luxor Obelisk dominates the Place de la Concorde, a monument older than the city of Paris itself.

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L is for Louis

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Many French kings were named Louis, and their combined reigns stretch over hundreds of years of French history.

Louis Ist, born in 778, was the third son of Charlemagne, and became his successor after the death of his two older brothers. His grandson was Louis II, whose son in turn was Louis III, but it was his brother Charles who became the father of Louis IV and great-grandfather of Louis V.

Are you lost yet? Me too.

Louis VI at Saint Denis Basilica (bottom left)

Let’s leave the Carolingian dynasty for the Capetians. After Louis V who died in 987, it took a change of dynasty to get to Louis VI, born in 1084. His son was Louis VII, his great-grandson Louis VIII and with the following generation we finally get to someone interesting: Louis IX, better known as Saint-Louis. We’re in the 13th century now, and Louis is king for over forty years. His reign is seen as the golden age for the kingdom of France which reached economic and political summits during this era. He had a reputation of being very pious and a high moral integrity.
He was canonized in 1297, twenty-seven years after his death, and remains the only French king to receive that distinction from the Catholic church.

Following his death, it took three generations to get to Louis X, the last Louis of the Capetian dynasty. And even after entering the Valois dynasty, it was some time before Louis XI became king in 1423. (He was the son and successor of Charles VII who was crowned with the help of Joan of Arc, with whom you might be more familiar than any of these kings.)

Onward, to cousin Louis XII, who died without giving the kingdom a successor, so the crown went to yet another cousin, François d’Angoulême (the first king named François). Contrary to Louis XII, he had a number of children, yet none of them was named Louis. (His daughter Louise died aged 3 but she couldn’t have become queen anyway.)

Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne at Saint Denis Basilica

Enter the Bourbon dynasty and the reigns of the most famous kings named Louis:

Louis XIII with his prime ministers Cardinal Richelieu and Mazarin, arch-enemies of the Three Musketeers

Louis XIV, the Sun King, who built the glorious palace of Versailles to escape the dangerous streets of Paris

Louis XV who lent his name to the architectural style Louis Quinze and reconciled France and Austria, sealing the alliance with the marriage between his grandson Louis and Marie-Antoinette.
Can you see it coming? That grandson is none other than Louis XVI who lost his head during the French Revolution.
Which makes his brother, Louis XVIII, who returned to the throne after the first fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1814, the last king of France by that name (and one of the last kings of France full stop).

Louis XVIII at Saint Denis Basilica

You’ll wonder what happened to Louis XVII and what possessed the parents to name two of their sons Louis, especially as they were born only one year apart?
I can only answer the first question: Louis XVII, or Louis Charles, was the second son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. He was considered Dauphin after the death of his older brother but died aged ten during the French Revolution, 19 years before his uncle claimed back the throne.

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Royal Squares, Circles, and Triangles

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In France, and even more so in Paris, a place royale, literally a royal square, was meant to surround a royal statue, mostly an equestrian statue in the Roman tradition, but later also pedestrian statues. People could walk in the square and admire the statue of their king.
There are five places royales in Paris that have undergone changes over the course of history.

1 – Place des Vosges


Initial name: Place Royale
Inauguration: 1612
Statue: Louis XIII
Origin of the name: The French Département Vosges (in eastern France), was the first to pay its taxes under the French Revolution.
Location: Marais, 4th arrondissement
Story: Ordered by Henri IV, it was inauguration at the occasion of the engagement of Louis XIII with Anne of Austria.

2 – Place Dauphine


Inauguration: 1614
Statue: no statue in the square, but a statue of Henri IV stands in the middle of the Pont Neuf
Origin of the name: Named for the Dauphin, the heir apparent, the future Louis XIII.
Location: Île de la Cité, 1st arrondissement
Story: Created by Henri IV following the construction of the Pont Neuf. (It’s actually a triangle, by the way.)

3 – Place des Victoires


Inauguration: 1686
Statue: Louis XIV as Roman Emperor
Origin of the name: in celebration of the military victories of Louis XIV
Location: 1st and 2nd arrondissements
Story: Financed by the Duke de la Feuillade, Marshal of France, it is the first square created by a private individual to celebrate his sovereign. (Also it is actually a circle, not a square.)

4 – Place Vendôme


Initial name: Place Louis Le Grand (Louis XIV)
Other names: Place des Conquêtes (Conquests Square), and during the Revolution, Place des Piques (Pike Square, from the pikes on which were displayed the heads of the beheaded by the guillotine)
Inauguration: 1699
Statue: initially Louis XIV (destroyed in 1792), presently Napoléon Ier at the top of the column
Origin of the current name: The square was built in the place of the Hôtel de Vendôme, a hôtel particulier or townhouse.
Location: 1st arrondissement between rue de la Paix and the Tuileries Gardens
Story: Initiated by Louis XIV, his grand project never saw the light of day. In the end, the square was built by the City of Paris. One of its prestigious addresses houses the Ritz.

5 – Place de la Concorde


Initial name: Place Louis XV
Other name: Place de la Révolution
Inauguration: 1772
Statue: Louis XV, destroyed and replaced by the Egyptian obelisk
Origin of the name: Reconciliation of the French people at the end of the Terror (bloody period during the French Revolution)
Location: 8th arrondissement, between the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs-Élysées, on the “royal axis”
Story: During the Terror, it was the location of the guillotine where among many others, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette were beheaded.

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